She Invests

According to the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), as of 2021, there are approximately 9.9 million women-owned micro businesses (fewer than 10 employees) and approximately 2.4 million small businesses (between 10 and 499 employees)

According to a 2019 study by the National Women's Business Council (NWBC), women-owned businesses face barriers to accessing capital, such as limited access to business networks, bias in the loan application process, and a lack of collateral. The study found that women-owned businesses were less likely to receive traditional bank loans and more likely to use personal savings or credit cards to fund their businesses.

The solution is a lightweight web app that utilizes a large language model to summarize financial agreements (e.g., leases or payment terms) and tools (e.g., SWIFT or API transfers), including whether they are comparatively fair, using language which is easily understandable. These summaries will be provided in English with the intention to expand to Spanish and other languages common in North America.

For summaries of agreements, users will upload a file or scan of the agreement to the solution, and it will provide the summary in the user’s browser. For questions related to financial tools, users will use AI-powered chat to get information from the solution.

Some women-owned businesses may face challenges in understanding financial options, particularly if they do not have a background in finance or a suitable mentor.

Our solution will eventually serve the 12.3 million women-owned micro and small businesses in the United States. Our solution focuses on people who speak US English. The solution will be translated into Spanish once the English version on working well.

The Team Lead runs a micro, woman-owned business that cannot afford to engage a financial advisor to review agreements and financial instruments, instead relying on self-taught financial knowledge and crowd-sourced answers. Team members include other micro-scale entrepreneurs who must self-educate on dense financial literature as there isn’t a readily accessible summary of an agreement or comparison of how fair its terms are. Team members are located in the United States and Africa. Input is gained through one-on-one and group discussions with other micro and small-scale entrepreneurs.

Our solution is a web application powered by AI technology which will support our target audience. This application will be able to learn the financial habits of the target audience through a gamified application which will enable us to make financial recommendations to our users based on their financial literacy. For users who may not have access to the internet, we can make the AI-enabled solution available via USSD and text messaging, so that any user with mobile phone access can make use of the platform. The prototype has been developed and hosted on the cloud as a proof of concept prototype but it has not been released for public usage.

Zero

We are applying to Solve to receive business mentoring support and resources to scale from a prototype app that serves multiple languages and cultures.

What makes it innovative is that it leverages on latest technology to provide disadvantaged women access to financial resources based on their level of financial literacy. AI technologies helps us to make this prediction based on their interaction with our gamified platform.

But we plan to do this y gauging the initial financial literacy of our users from when they start and comparing that with their new financial literacy levels over time as they use our app.

A major roadblock to understanding an agreement is literacy, and according to research by the Department of Education under half of adults in the United States have a high level of literacy and a fifth have a low level of literacy or are illiterate. While we cannot directly increase an individual’s level of literacy, we can lower the level of literacy required to understand a financial agreement by summarizing its terms in simpler language, which effectively increases the reader’s ability to comprehend an agreement.

To further support this outcome, we will provide a snapshot of whether an agreement is comparatively fair (e.g., it does not include predatory interest rates or unusually short payment periods). By increasing the reader’s ability to understand an agreement, we increase their ability to make beneficial financial choices. Through making better financial choices, users should be able to more effectively apply their capital.

We define technology broadly as the application of science and evidence-based knowledge to the practical aims of human life. For MIT Solve and our mission to drive innovation to solve world challenges, it’s important that your solution is using technology to solve a problem facing your community and/or the world and seeks to benefit people and the planet. We welcome solutions that are using apps, SMS technology, software, AI, robots, drones, blockchain, and virtual reality, and what you might commonly think of as technology in this modern era! We also welcome solutions that are leveraging traditional, ancestral, and natural technologies, and knowledge systems. That could be using centuries-old irrigation or building techniques, plant-based solutions that can reduce the effects of climate change, biodegradable sanitary pads, and so much more.

The core technology that powers our solution is AI programming which is hosted on Amazon Web services cloud. Backed by statistics and programming, AI can help us make significantly correct predictions about user groups and thereby inform targeted recommendations for these identified groups.

We are women lead team with members from the United States, Ireland, and NIgeria. Our solution takes language and culture into consideration. Our team leader has extensive experience teaching technology to people living in Sub-Saharan African countries.